CHENNAI: I thought of ‘Vaaranam Aayiram’ many times while watching Star. It’s not just because of Kavin’s early looks, as Kalai, or his dance moves. There’s more. There’s a phone call he makes from an alien city, as he breaks down and shares his loss with his parents. Here, the death is not of a person; it’s of a dream. Here too, the story feels rather personal, almost autobiographical; here too, one romantic relationship ends, and another begins, and here too, the new girl helps heal the protagonist. Above all, there’s the whole ‘supportive dad’ angle. The big difference, of course, is that here, Kalai doesn’t seem as thankful or grateful—not verbally anyway.
In fact, if it weren’t for Kavin, if it weren’t for how Elan channels his love for our cinema with all those homages in the first half, Kalai would be a really hard man to root for. But I suppose this can be said of any man whose existence is completely dedicated to a single pursuit. I want to be a star. This pursuit—of not just being an actor, but a star—surely necessitates narcissism on some level. At one point, his first girlfriend, Meera, asks him why he stopped being about them and turned into being all about himself. I wanted to ask Meera when Kalai was ever about her. He seeks not a girl or a wife, but a ‘heroine’ for when he becomes a ‘hero’. That’s why it surprised me that Meera never gets her due from the film after she breaks up with him. To be fair to Elan, he does way more than a usual filmmaker will. He lets Meera register her love for biking. He gets the aggressive Kalai dressing up as a woman and blushing too. In that moment, looks be damned, he truly expresses his emotion devoid of insecurities. And that’s why Meera, in that moment, calls him beautiful. But Kalai is almost never like this in the film, as his thankless quest for money and opportunities, fills himself up with self-pity and bitterness.
For instance, it surprised me that he is never shown to respond to his dad’s cardiac issues, even after his mom points out that his acting aspirations are part of the financial problem. At one point, Kalai claims to be trying to please his family by wearing the garb of responsibility, but when he can’t do it anymore, I find myself feeling worse for the people around him than for Kalai himself. While on the middle-class, Aaditi Pohankar, as Surabhi, feels rather miscast, and the lip-sync issues don’t help either.
